The forty-sixth installment of the ongoing Starfleet Corps of Engineers eBook series, Spin, is the second contribution to the series by the husband and wife writing team J. Steven York and Christina F. York. Spin does invite obvious comparisons with the authors' previous S.C.E. tale, Enigma Ship. Both stories are about alien vessels that present a threat of some kind, but that is as far as the similarity goes. This is an entirely different story.

It seems like a fairly simple and straightforward mission when the USS da Vinci is assigned to stop a derelict vessel that is heading straight for the inhabited world of Lokra...until they discover that the derelict is not what it seems. While Commander Sonya Gomez and the S.C.E. team try to unlock the secrets of the ship, Captain David Gold must find out what the Lokra are hiding and why.

The one element that really allows Spin to stand out is the highly imaginative alien species that the Yorks have created for this story, the Strata. It is not only that the Strata are physically unique; they are a species with no concept of anger or revenge. Although the Strata really spark your interest, the story length does not allow the reader to learn more about them than the basics.

Spin does, however, provide some great character moments for some of the da Vinci's crew. The relationship between Fabian Stevens and Lt. Commander Corsi gets a bit of a nudge. Commander Sonya Gomez takes another step forward in her efforts to recover from the grief she sometimes still labors under and Lt. Commander Mor glasch Tev is amusingly and typically Tev.

Overall, the story is commonplace, nothing remarkable but the character moments make it a worthwhile read for the regular readers of the series.